The present invention relates to an article of footwear, such as an athletic shoe. In particular, the present invention relates to a piece of footwear which includes a location determining means, such as a global positioning system (“GPS”) receiver along with a covert alarm activation button which can be selectively activated by the wearer of the footwear to send out an alarm signal which is encoded with the location (e.g., latitude and longitude) of the wearer of the footwear. More particularly, the present invention relates to an automatic emergency override system which allows the circuitry contained in the footwear to initiate the transmission of an encoded alarm signal.
As described in the parent application of the present application, footwear containing a GPS receiver, a transmission means (such as a cellular phone module), and a covert alarm activation button can be used to provide the wearer of the footwear with the ability to selectively transmit a “find me” alarm signal which has been encoded with the identification of the wearer of the footwear, along with the location of the footwear at the time that the alarm signal is transmitted.
While the foregoing technology has a number of advantages over the prior art tracking devices which are “always on”, whereby the privacy of the wearer is impeded while the battery life of the tracking and transmission circuitry is limited, a possible problem which the present invention is intended to solve relates to the fact that if the wearer of the footwear described in the parent application was to be abducted, and the abductor realized that the wearer was wearing the footwear, the abductor might try to remove the footwear from the wearer and dispose of it before the wearer could activate the button which sends out the location encoded alarm signal in an attempt to prevent the wearer from thereby seeking assistance.
In view of the foregoing potential issue with the footwear described in the parent application a system for preventing an abductor from taking advantage of the fact that the alarm apparatus requires affirmative activation in order to maintain both battery life and the privacy of the wearer would be desirable.